Linda Pendleton states:
It was 1968, a time in America of civil unrest, love and flower power, psychedelic streets of Haight Ashbury and Berkeley, the horrors of the Vietnam War, and the iniquities of the Mafia, when Mack Bolan, the Executioner was conceived in the mind of Don Pendleton.
At the height of the Executioner success, many publishers and writers attempted to ride on the coattails of Don's success. Some succeeded. Others did not. In many of those books, what appeared to be missing were the elements that Don had so skillfully crafted with his presentation of his fictional hero.
Within his Bolan stories are strong values, with an underlying theme of a higher morality that Bolan follows. More than once Don said about the Executioner novels, "My biggest job throughout writing the series was to keep faith with Bolan–that what he is doing is right. I wanted an enemy beyond redemption–an enemy that all civilized procedures had failed to put down. The Mafia was ready-made. They embodied all the evils of mankind."
Don wrote the first novel in the series, War Against the Mafia out of his desire to express his discomfort with the reaction of many Americans to our soldiers who were dying for our country in the jungles of Vietnam and those coming home to outrageous verbal and physical abuse. So Mack Bolan became Don's symbolic statement. He also became every soldier's voice. Don created a heroic character in Bolan, a true hero who was dedicated to justice. The enemy that Bolan had to fight was no longer on the battlefields of Vietnam but right here on American soil, and that enemy was the Mafia.
So what is it about Don's fictional hero that has captured the minds of readers with diverse international social and cultural backgrounds and kept readers wanting more all these many years? Is it that yearning for a heroic figure? Is it the essence of a fictional character that brings him to life, moving off the page into the heart of the reader? If those things endear us to fictional heroes, how does the author achieve that? An unforgettable character is created by an author who writes with passion, with credibility and rational thought about the human situation. Mack Bolan does not portray the human situation in stark shades of black and white, and his quest is every man and woman's quest.
Don elaborated on the metaphysical elements and the essence of his Executioner hero when he said, "Bolan lives large, responding to the challenge of life, remaining alive and remaining human in the process. Success in living means growth, achievement, beating the challenge and maturing toward a meaningful evolutional plateau. Bolan's killing, and the motives and methods involved, is actually a consecration of the life principle. He is proclaiming, in effect, that life is meaningful, that the world is important, that it does matter what happens here, that universal goals are being shaped on this cosmic cinder called earth. That's a heroic idea. Bolan is championing the idea. That is what a hero is. He cares and reacts to a destructive principle inherent in the human situation. Destructive violence defeats the evolutionary movement if unchecked; constructive or positive violence is the check, usually, and operates to advance the cause of evolutionary life. I would hope that my books remind people that commitment is what life is about. I hope that their own sense of personal dignity and respect for life is enhanced through that identification with Bolan. My moral obligation to the reader is, foremost, to entertain him or her. Secondarily, it is to add some worthwhile content to their understanding of who and what they are or may be. I do not believe that my books constitute a call to violence. Quite the reverse. The whole thing is an allegory, and anybody who would want to trade places with Mack Bolan is missing the entire point of the Executioner rationale. This guy is living in hell."
Don also believed that the male attraction to Bolan had to do with the innate warrior essence that has basically been lost over the centuries. Men identify with Bolan's warrior essence, even at a subliminal level, and in doing so, re-identify the male essence within self.
Approximately forty percent of Executioner fans over the years have been women. From a woman's perspective, Bolan is the romantic hero, a man of strength and a protector–a knight in shining armor. So in a society that seems to fail to give us true heroes, Bolan fills the bill.
When you read Don Pendleton you feel his multilayer reach for his reader's mind. That was his goal, his hope, that when a reader finished the last page and closed one of his books not only would the reader feel entertained, but would be left with something to think about, some new idea to ponder. A meeting of the minds: a meeting of his, the author, with each and every one of his millions of readers around the world.
Don franchised his Executioner characters to Harlequin's Gold Eagle Imprint in 1980 after writing Executioner thirty-eight, Satan's Sabbath. Gold Eagle's program has resulted in about four hundred Mack Bolan books published since that time with several spin-off series: Able Team, Phoenix Force, Stony Man, and Super Bolan. Harlequin continues to publish four Executioner ebook novels each year. Don was Consulting Editor with the Harlequin program until his death but did not write any of the Harlequin books, which have all been written by a team of writers.
–Linda Pendleton
©Copyright 2002, 2014 by Linda Pendleton
Don Pendleton's only Mack Bolan Short Story, written 40 years ago in 1978 by Don for The Great American Detective Anthology. Now in ebook and print.
Now in Print. The first THREE novels of the Executioner Series: War Against the Mafia; Death Squad; Battle Mask.
E-BOOKS Now!
Amazon, Nook, Kobo, iGoogle, iBooks,
WAR AGAINST THE MAFIA,
Originally published, 1969
DEATH SQUAD,
Originally published, 1969
BATTLE MASK,
Originally published, 1970
MIAMI MASSACRE,
Originally published, 1970
CONTINENTAL CONTRACT,
Originally published, 1971
ASSAULT ON SOHO,
Originally published, 1971
NIGHTMARE IN NEW YORK,
Originally published, 1971
CHICAGO WIPE-OUT,
Originally published, 1971
VEGAS VENDETTA,
Originally published, 1971
CARIBBEAN KILL,
Originally published, 1972
CALIFORNIA HIT,
Originally published, 1972
BOSTON BLITZ,
Originally published, 1972
WASHINGTON IOU,
Originally published, 1972
SAN DIEGO SIEGE,
Originally published, 1972
PANIC IN PHILLY,
Originally published, 1973
JERSEY GUNS,
Originally published, 1974
TEXAS STORM,
Originally published, 1974
DETROIT DEATHWATCH,
Originally published, 1974
NEW ORLEANS KNOCKOUT,
Originally published, 1974
FIREBASE SEATTLE,
Originally published, 1975
HAWAIIAN HELLGROUND,
Originally published, 1975
ST. LOUIS SHOWDOWN ,
Originally published, 1975
CANADIAN CRISIS,
Originally published, 1975
COLORADO KILL-ZONE,
Originally published, 1976
ACAPULCO RAMPAGE,
Originally published, 1976
DIXIE CONVOY,
Originally published, 1976
SAVAGE FIRE,
Originally published, 1977
COMMAND STRIKE,
Originally published, 1977
CLEVELAND PIPELINE,
Originally published, 1977
ARIZONA AMBUSH,
Originally published, 1977
TENNESSEE SMASH,
Originally published, 1978
MONDAY'S MOB,
Originally published, 1978
TERRIBLE TUESDAY,
Originally published, 1979
WEDNESDAY'S WRATH,
Originally published, 1979
THERMAL THURSDAY,
Originally published, 1979
FRIDAY'S FEAST,
Originally published, 1979
SATAN'S SABBATH,
Originally published, 1980
The Executioner War Book (1977)
will not be published at this time.